I've got a pretty beefy system* here, and whenever I launch Quake 3 it seems as if the whole application is "stuttering."

It was mentioned in the FAQ** on IfSoftware's site that this may be cause by a problem with KT133A chipset. I have an A7V which features the KT133 chipset -- the precursor to KT133A. In ths same FAQ, they suggest that disabling 3dnow! in kernel config and recompiling (the kernel) would fix the problem.

But, I can not find in my kernel config anything having to do with 3dnow!! I was told (or at least hinted to) that 3dnow optimization is selected automatically if an Athlon cpu is selected. Is this true?

Has anyone else run into this problem with slowness in Quake 3? If so ,how did you fix it? Or does anyone else have any other insight?

I have nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx installed. `glx` in my XF86Config and all that.

Nice to see familiar sigs Now, I do believe there might be a few tweaks you can do that I remember from my KX133 days. You might have to some BIOS trickery to smooth out the stutter. AGP Fast write, and make sure that you have your nvidia AGP option set to 1...